


Missing Children and the Establishment of the List of House Rules

by Illusinia



Series: Darcy Stark Series [7]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:21:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Illusinia/pseuds/Illusinia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy goes missing, scaring both Tony and Pepper. Pepper decides the house rules need to be officially written down. There is a contact involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing Children and the Establishment of the List of House Rules

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this series is still going. I have multiple stories in the works right now and I'm trying to get them finished. I apologize for the wait. Please bear with me.

“There,” stated Tony sadly. “Jarvis is now off-line for exactly one hour.”

 

Pepper rolled her eyes. “We'll be find Tony. We managed before you built Jarvis, we can last for an hour without him.”

 

“Yeah, I know,” agreed Tony with a sigh as he turned and scanned the room. “Uh, hey Pep? Where's Darcy?”

 

“Isn't she in the living room?” asked Pepper as she turned towards the center of the room where Darcy had been sleeping on the couch ten minutes ago. But the two year old was gone. “Oh no. Tony, did you see where she went?”

 

“No, I was busy shutting down Jarvis,” replied Tony. “Shit. Darcy?”

 

“Darcy!” called Pepper, looking around the room a little frantically. “Alright Tony, let's not panic. She was here ten minutes ago, sleeping. We've been in the next room the whole time and no one passed by us, so she has to be here somewhere.”

 

“Right, we just have to find her,” agreed Tony, trying to calm down. This was like when she crawled under his workbench when she was six months old all over again. “Where would you go if you were a toddler?”

 

“My room?” tried Pepper, heading for the stairs. “Maybe she went up to her room.”

 

“Right, I'll check the kitchen,” called Tony as he bolted for the kitchen door. Pushing inside, he scanned the room for any sign of his daughter. “Darcy?” When he didn't get a response, he started to pull open the cabinets and throw everything out of them. Pots, pans, and a variety of other things went flying over the mad genius' shoulder as he frantically searched for his child.

 

Upstairs, Pepper bolted into the first room on her left, scanning the area frantically for Darcy. The room happened to be Pepper's office and showed no signs of disturbance. There weren't may places for Darcy to hide, even with her small size. Running around the end of her desk, Pepper dropped to her knees and checked beneath her desk. The space was empty.

 

Cursing, she bolted out of her room and into Darcy's own across the way. Throwing open the closet, she glanced inside before hurrying to check under Darcy's crib. Both places were vacant, increasing Pepper's anxiety and sending her flying back into the hall. The next door on the left led to her bedroom, which was locked to keep Tony out. And it was still locked when she checked it. Sighing, she went to the bathroom next, which was as empty as the other rooms had been.

 

“Damn it,” muttered Pepper, allowing herself the slip. “Where are you Darcy?” Glancing around, she tried to think where the two year old could have gone. Which is when she noticed that the door to Tony's bedroom was ajar. “Oh no. No, no, no, no. Not Tony's room. Please don't let her be in Tony's room.”

 

Pushing open the door, Pepper scanned the disaster zone that Tony called his room. Piles of dirty clothes littered the ground, clean ones tumbling out of the closet in a small avalanche of fabric. The bed was a mess, with no sign of brown hair burrowed into the blankets. To be safe, Pepper quickly stripped the bed but found no toddler hiding inside. One of her hands shot through her hair as she scanned the room for anywhere else the child could be hiding. The door to the bathroom was cracked open, which fueled Pepper's worry further. Who knew what Tony had laying around in there.

 

Throwing the door open though, Pepper was met with a, surprisingly clean, but empty bathroom. “Damn it.” Heading back to the stairs, she ran down them as fast as she could and re-entered the main floor of the house. “Tony? Where are you?”

 

“Dining room,” called back Tony, emerging a second later from the large dining room set off the living room. “She's not in the kitchen, back yard, or dining room.”

 

“And she's not upstairs,” added Pepper with a groan. “Where is she?”

 

Tony paused for a second, scanning the room for a moment before his eyes landed on the stairs. Pepper's eyes followed his line of sight to the stares before looking back at him at the same time he looked at her. Their next words were spoken in tandem: “The workshop.”

 

Bolting towards the stairs, Tony took them two at a time with Pepper running behind him as fast as she could. “Tony, do you think Darcy tried to break in?”

 

“No clue,” replied Tony. “The room's locked, so it's not like she could get in unless she knows the code.”

 

Reaching the bottom of the stairs, both adults looked on in awe at the sight before them. Darcy was sitting in the middle of Tony's workshop, fiddling with some piece of technology she'd gotten from who knew where. The door to the workshop was shut, which didn't seem to bother Darcy one bit.

 

“Darcy!” exclaimed both Tony and Pepper as Tony ran to the key pad and entered his code. He burst into the room as soon as the lock clicked, scooping up his daughter and hugging her tightly.

 

“Darcy, thank god,” muttered Tony, his arms only loosening enough that Pepper could hug the little girl as well.

  
“Darcy, how did you get in here?” asked Pepper, pulling back a little way from Darcy but keeping her hand on the toddler's back. Her other hand came to rest on Tony's shoulder closest to her. Without thinking, one of Tony's arms dropped to wrap around Pepper's waist and drawing both women into something akin to a group hug.

 

Darcy shrugged a little, pointing to the lock by the door. “I got onto Daddy's stool and typed the numbers he always types into the pad in. The door opened.”

 

Pepper groaned. “Really?”

 

The little girl looked between her parents in confusion. “Did I do something bad?”

 

“No, Darce,” assured Tony quickly, kissing the little girl's forehead. “You just scared us is all. But Darcy, you can't come down here by yourself. This is Daddy's workshop and it's not alright for you to be here alone, alright?”

 

“But why?” sighed Darcy petulantly, pouting up at her father.

 

“Because it's dangerous,” explained Pepper. “And we don't want you to get hurt.”

 

“Alright,” accepted Darcy, pout still firmly in place. “Can I come down with Daddy?”

 

“Always sweetheart,” assured Tony. “As long as I'm down here, you can come down whenever you want.”

 

Darcy offered her father a smile. “Alright Daddy, that's fair. Can we watch a movie now?”

 

Pepper nodded, relief still clearly painted across her features. “Of course Darcy. Come on, lets go pick something out.”

 

\----------------------

 

Pepper dropped a pile of papers in front of Tony, startling him awake on the sofa. Bolting up, he looked around furiously, blinking sleep from his eyes. It took a moment for him to look up at the woman standing over him. “Pep? Where's Darcy?”

 

“Asleep upstairs,” replied Pepper. “You two fell asleep during your second viewing of 'The Iron Giant'.”

 

“Oh,” muttered Tony, stretching as he sat up on the couch. Noticing the papers, he blinked down at them curiously. “What's this?”

 

“House rules,” replied Pepper. “We've amassed enough within the last two years that I've decided a list is in order.”

 

Tony raised an eyebrow at his assistant, but started reading none the less.

 

 

**Rules of the Stark Households**

 

These rules are applicable no matter what residence is currently in use and are to be enforced under threat of punishment in the form of restricted workshop access and strict curfews. All residents within the house will follow these rules unless mitigating circumstances (i.e. an emergency) occur.

 

 

  1. Robot furniture is not permitted in Darcy's room

  2. Automatic changing stations are not permitted

  3. 'Helper' and 'Assistant' robots are not to be built, especially in the kitchen.

  4. No house AI's may be constructed without the knowledge and agreement of the rest of the household

  5. Any developmental milestones observed by one parent must be reported to the other

  6. Any book containing a curse word or anything resembling a curse word is not appropriate reading material for a child

  7. Tony is not allowed in the kitchen to cook. Period.

  8. Children under the age of 5 are not permitted to be left alone in Tony's workshop

  9. The pass-code to Tony's workshop will be rotated once a day when toddlers are present on the premises




 

 

  
“Only 9 rules? That isn't bad,” commented Tony as he finished looking over the piece of paper on top and moved on to the stack below. “Um, what's the rest of this?”

 

“An agreement that says you'll obey these laws or accept punishment otherwise,” explained Pepper with a smile. “And that's a working list. I have no doubts that more will be added as time goes on.”

 

“Great,” groaned Tony. “Hey Pep, can I make rules too?”

 

“Of course,” confirmed Pepper. “Just no rules that say you don't have to obey the rules. Anarchist arguments won't work here.”

 

Tony groaned again, but flipped the contract open and began to look for the places he had to sign. He knew Pepper wouldn't put anything over the top in the contract and she wouldn't include anything unfair. Besides, she was doing this for Darcy. There was a reason he hadn't wanted to raise Darcy without his more than capable assistant, and this was part of it.


End file.
